Neither Justice Nor Morality: Just Impunity From Crimes
Against Humanity

By William A. Cook

The
world is ruled by neither justice nor morality;
crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is
forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is
ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To
work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained
through work, but through exploitation of others.
And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at
least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty?
We believe neither in the morality of man nor in the
morality of systems.” Tadeusz
BorowskiThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and
Gentlemen

February 05, 2013 "Information
Clearing House"
- This
hideous and degrading picture of the human animal Borowski
painted at Auschwitz : humankind without benevolence,
without compassion; lacking empathy, lacking mercy;
inexorable, ruthless, and malevolent; a savage, brutal
animal devoid of morals but obedient to laws. Borowski
believed there was no crime a man would not commit to save
himself. That belief, salvation for self at the expense of
justice, precludes moral virtue. Borowski, a poet and a
writer, labored at Auschwitz from 1942 until the liberation
of the camps; he was not a homosexual, or a Roma or a Jew;
he was an observer of human nature in a place where it was
bared to the bone. But if his life there brought him to the
realization of the barbarity of humans, devoid of morals,
then he also understood what we lost as a result of that
void:

“There can be no
beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth
that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue
that condones it.”

Until and unless we
eradicate injustice, we have no reason to know beauty, for
all that we create is tainted by that injustice pretending
all is well with our world. Truth does not exist if
injustice surrounds us and we are silent in our complicity.
Proclaiming moral virtue in a world awash in crimes against
humanity is condoning the crimes unless we act to eradicate
the crimes.

Borowski's work came
to mind during these days of Holocaust remembrance because I
used his words in a commencement address to our law school
some years ago. His thoughts permeate this day of
remembrance. On January 29 th , Nick Cumming-Bruce writing
from Geneva for the New York Times, reported that “
Israel became the first country to withhold cooperation from
a United Nations review of its human rights practices on
Tuesday, shunning efforts by the United States and others to
encourage it to participate.”

How strange that a
people who endured the horrendous human betrayal of their
inalienable rights to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness should become the next perpetrators of evil
against another people denied their rights of recognition of
equal justice and dignity and respect and honor as neighbors
in this world where all should enjoy the fruits of this
earth. How can one understand the state of Israel, the state
declared to be the “Jewish State,” the state that rang the
rafters of the United Nations with cries against Iraq and
Iran for discrimination, for anti-Semitism, for existential
threats of death to Israel, running to the UNHRC to survey
nations to find those antagonistic to Israel and bring them
before the Human Rights Council for public punishment and
admonishment to correct their criminal behavior, indeed, to
levy fines and threaten sanctions should they not
relent,only to become the state that defies the same UNHRC
when it is their turn for review.

Did they not find the
United Nations an institution designed to protect the weak
against the strong, to provide conventions that protected
all peoples regardless of color, ethnic background,
religious beliefs, political and economic systems, a means
of regress for themselves, a small nation set in the middle
of their perceived enemies,or did they understand that they
could manipulate the system when convenient to gain their
ends and defy it when they should be condemned. Did not the
Neo-Cons and their allies damn the UN for inaction against
Saddam Hussein for defying 16 UN Resolutions thus
establishing the justice of an invasion of Iraq even though
Israel had defied over 160 like resolutions? Have they not
been vociferous in their demands that Iran be placed under
sanctions and indeed invaded to prevent them from acquiring
weapons of mass destruction even as they have 100s of such
weapons and refuse to admit that publically or to sign the
Mid-East Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, yet demand action
be taken against the existential threat that Iran places
against their state? Why then do they defy the UNHRC?

Let's be as blunt as
Borowski: the world is not ruled by justice or morality, it
is ruled by power. Israel knows this. They have taken
control of the greatest military machine the world has ever
known, the United States . They control our President, our
Senate, and our Congress, and they did this just as Borowski
had declared, with money. If one needs proof of these
assertions consider this photo of Senator Lindsay Graham as
he interrogates Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense,
Chuck Hagel, with some help from our masters.

Neither AIPAC nor
Israel fear retribution—they disdain the opinions of the
peoples of this earth, they ridicule the organizations that
have been established to guide nations in peaceful ways, and
they laugh at the morals taught by the religions of the
world, because they have no respect for those bound by a
moral order. They act by sheer hutzpah, through the vetting
of those who occupy an office, those who intend to run for
office, and where necessary who should run for office. It is
Israel 's agenda that our representatives attend to, not the
agenda of the American people. Unending wars benefit the
wealthy, they destroy the average citizen.

Unfortunately American
democracy is a bidding war, an auction of offices able to be
purchased by the pound. The American people no longer run
the government; the forces that pay the puppet run the
country. Consider the reality that the UN faces today. On
November 29 they invited Palestine in as a member nation;
that was anathema to the Zionist government of Israel that
denied that recognition even though they are a signatory of
that organization. They simply impose their law and their
political determinations on all the peoples of the earth. In
short, they determine what the UN will do or they will
reject the world body. They can do this because they can
tell the U.S. how they will vote in the Security Council.
Thus the impunity. Understand that 5% of the world's
population runs the UN; 95% of the world's population
becomes mute in the oligarchical power structure that the
U.S combined with Israel asserts over the wishes of the
peoples of the world.

How then achieve not
only peace in Palestine , but any possible justice for the
people of Palestine ? The answer rests with the people of
the world, not with their governments which are held beneath
the gold bricks of the U.S. and Israel ; but the people are
represented in the UNHRC (Human Rights Council) that has
been crippled by the United States ' refusal to pay for
operations because it admitted Palestine to participation
without the US ' permission. Thus do the few cripple the
many while denying justice to the oppressed and the
occupied. It should be obvious to all that the US does not
have a moral base from which it operates. It operates only
for money, for the 1%, and it uses its citizens as
collateral damage against those who question or attack its
control. That's AIPAC's way, that's PINAC's way, that's the
way of the Neo-Cons; it's what the Zionists learned from
Nazi Germany, it's the answer to MP David Ward's question,
“What did they learn at Auschwitz ?” They learned what
Borowski learned: “The world is ruled by power and power is
obtained by money.” There is no moral virtue that determines
justice for people.

But for those who
believe that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
states the opposite, the road to peace must be throughthe
UNHRC and the International Court of Justice. The people of
the world have spoken for 64 years through resolutions
voicing in clear and bold language the crimes against
humanity inflicted on the Palestinian people.The laws of the
UN Conventions and the obligations of the nations of the
world that have signed to be members of that organization
are clear, the alleged crimes must be brought before these
bodies to face justice and to bring justice. Should this not
be done, both Israel and the US will recreate the laws of
war so that their crimes are washed away as easily as Pilate
washed his hands of the sentencing of Jesus. “The world is
ruled by power”; it is happening as I write this piece.

Let's continue the
bluntness of Borowski. The UNHRC has prepared a
comprehensive document to be used when Israel comes before
it, a document that itemizes its crimes against humanity
with focus on the Settlements and the devastation they have
brought to the Palestinian people. Israel knows of this
report. It will not be brought before the world court of
public opinion and certainly will not be brought before a
court of justice. It will not just defy the UN, it will
castigate the 188 nation states that allowed Palestine to
become a member state as biased and discriminatory against
the Jewish State; they will flaunt the Holocaust as it
represented anti-Semitism that necessitated the creation of
a state for Jews as protection for their people; and it will
build its case for its actions on grounds that only their
military can defend their people and hence the constant cry
of self-defense. Israel has no compunctions about being the
sole nation to not adhere to the UN's human rights reviews
of all member states; Israel cares nothing about the UN or
its purpose. It will act unilaterally because it can undo
anything the UN desires to do.

Let's understand the
actions of this amoral nation. It has just attacked Syria ,
a recognized member of the United Nations. Syria has
executed no actions against Israel that can be justified
under the Geneva Conventions; the Israeli government has
invaded a nation without provocation regardless of the
innocent citizens that are hurt or killed, indeed oblivious
of such consequences because in fact they have no conscience
that questions such behavior. What would impel the
government of Israel to such an act? The answer is simple:
how can they force an alliance between the US and Israel
that can eliminate any chance that the American government
might not support Israel's defiance of the UN, especially
since the US had admonished Israel along with all the other
member states about defying the call from the UNHRC. They
know that the UN must condemn this act; they care not to
obey any laws that restrict their drive to control all of
Palestine , and if necessary, expand Eretz Israel beyond
even these borders. Their end determines their actions;
their laws supersede all others. Here are the words Weizmann
and Ben-Gurion promised the Mandate Government:

“if further action was
taken against them (by the British Mandate Government) to
destroy Zionism, then there would be a blood bath. Nothing
could prevent it. Nobody would be safe in Palestine (July
12, 1946, Rhodes Archive Documents). If need be, we shall
take the country by force. If Palestine proves too small,
her frontiers will have to be extended” (Ben Gurion,
Appendix LVc).

The announcement of
the UNHRC's review of Israel 's record forced Israel to yoke
America to its needs and bury the defiance of the UN so that
the US cannot abstain should the vote come before the UNSC.
These actions foretell the response Israel would take if
brought before the International Court of Justice. First, it
will damn the resolution as anti-Semitic; second it will
argue that the ICJ has no jurisdiction over their state as
it has its own laws in place and is not beholden to laws
that can supersede their own thus denying the sovereignty of
Israel; and third, they will present arguments that will
delay action knowing time erases memory and, as they have
experienced for 64 years, the world will forget. One need
only remember the abandonment of the Goldstone Report.

Borowski believed
there was no crime a man would not commit to save himself.
That belief, salvation for self at the expense of justice,
precludes moral virtue. These are men who have traded their
soul to the state in exchange for the consequences of
confronting the all-powerful state. They are as Henry David
Thoreau once stated, so many wooden soldiers marching to
another's tune. But for those of us who accept the
transcendent reality of moral righteousness, selling of the
soul cannot be an option. We bear the responsibility to act
as the arbiter for the state of our soul.No educated person
can escape responsibility for his or her actions. No
educated person can escape the ethical obligations of a free
mind. We are responsible to ourselves if we bear
responsibility to meaning and truth.

The world is not bound
by borders ultimately; it is bound by a moral order. No
nation has the right to impose by violence its will on
another by exorcising the universal principle that there
exists a basic, fundamental, and inalienable right that is
premised on freedom and justice, humanity and truth. If we
do not lead by moral force, we are by acquiescence the
followers of those who fail to act and subjects of those who
impose their will. There comes a time when everyone must cry
for justice, to cry for those who cannot cry for themselves.

This is the only
answer to Borowski's sorrowful lament as he witnessed the
inhumanity of those in power over the weak and helpless
Romas, Communists, homosexuals, the abnormal, and the Jews,
a horrid mixture of calculated humiliation, degradation of
spirit, physical abuse, slaughter and disregard of civilized
behavior in favor of laws created by the conqueror in a raw
display of arrogance against the beliefs of all other
nations. Today, the nations of the world are faced with a
similar power that has determined to subjugate the nations
of the world by arrogance, coercion, fraud, invasion, and
financial strategies that cripple nations, while undermining
the one agency that has brought a semblance of civilized
behavior to crisis's around the world, the United Nations.
The United Nations alone can and must take control of these
two renegade states or their Nazi like behavior made
possible over a prolonged period of years will negate all
International laws in favor of those who will impose their
power on the weak thus justifying the criminal against the
victim. Should that happen, we will have allowed Borowski's
horrid picture of humanity to be the epitaph of our
destroyed world.

William A. Cook is a Professor of English at the University
of La Verne in southern California. He writes frequently for
Internet publications including The Palestine Chronicle, MWC
News, Atlantic Free Press, Pacific Free Press,
Countercurrents, Counterpunch, World Prout Assembly,
Dissident Voice, and Information Clearing House among
others. His books include Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East
policy, The Rape of Palestine, The Chronicles of Nefaria, a
novella, and the forthcoming The Plight of the Palestinians.
He can be reached at wcook@laverne.edu
or
www.drwilliamacook.com

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